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| F. Scott Fitzgerald |
F. Scott Fitzgerald December 21 marks the eighty-third anniversary of author F. Scott Fitzgerald's death in Los Angeles at age forty-four. Not as often mentioned these days is that one of Fitzgerald's fellow authors, Nathanial West, would die in a traffic accident along with his wife Eileen the next day while returning to Los Angeles from an aborted hunting trip in Mexico - most likely to attend Fitzgerald's funeral. West caused the accident that claimed their lives on that fateful trip by absentmindedly blowing through a stop sign.
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| Nathanial West |
West and Fitzgerald became close friends as fellow Hollywood novelists, and he is best known for his novels Miss Lonelyhearts and The Day of the Locust. Eileen, as it turns out, died only four days before the Broadway play My Sister Eileen, a play based on her sister Ruth McKenney's 1938 memoir of the same name, had its hugely successful opening night in New York. She and West had only been married for about six months at the time of their deaths.
The book became the source of many other works, including the Broadway play, a musical, a radio play, two movies, and a CBS television series that aired in 1960. Sadly, Eileen lived to see none of this.
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| Eileen McKinney West |
Well that is sad that they died so young and close together in time. I had not heard of My Sister Eileen, I will look for the book.
ReplyDeleteI'm a big fan of memoirs, and I plan to try to find a copy of this one, too. Good luck. Eileen seems like such a forgotten person these days despite the notoriety her sudden death must have created at the time of her death and the opening of the Broadway play.
DeleteI knew about F. Scott Fitzgerald's death, but not about Nathanial West's and his wife's. How sad.
ReplyDeleteI have read of numerous cases of people being killed while on their way to funerals, and I'm always struck by how ironic that is. West was said to be a notoriously bad driver, so I guess no one should have been much surprised that he would die this way.
DeleteVery interesting post, Sam. I did not know much about Nathanial West and his wife, or their deaths. I have read about My Sister Eileen, the memoir and adaptations. I hope you do read the memoir so I can see what you think of it. And I will have to look into West's books.
ReplyDeleteTracy, I can't locate a copy of the memoir, so I might have to start looking for one of the movie versions instead. Looks like the memoir has been out of print for close to 10 years because the last trace of it I can find was the e-book version that was carried by Amazon back in 2012. I even saw a hardback copy, maybe a first edition, that was being sold on a book site for $212 plus postage.
DeleteI don't think West was hugely popular as a novelist, and that's probably why he was working as a Hollywood writer at the time of his death. I'd like to read one or two of his books, though.
What a tragic couple of days. I love F.Scott's writing and always wished he lived much longer.
ReplyDeleteIt's a real tragedy that so many artistic people died so young because of the poor lifestyle choices they made. Seems to be so common among people of a certain sensibility.
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